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Parent Company of Terrorizer Magazine Dissolved


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Sad news that on 29th Jan 19, Dark Arts Limited, the parent company of Terrorizer magazine was dissolved.  Story from GhostCultMag here:

 

http://www.ghostcultmag.com/parent-company-of-terrorizer-magazine-dissolved/?fbclid=IwAR1-ZJNI98JvsGlO2CsyjIDIr-QIc4dexCaTTQXodNJkCbhN93y7FC48C0M

I grew up listening to metal whilst reading Terrorizer through my teenage years and it is sad to see it go although not entirely unexpected.

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11 hours ago, Fjara said:

I've bought Terrorizer on and off for years, was always a good mag. Shame to hear the news.

There’s been problems for a good year or so with production and distribution of the mag.  I am expecting the Tez forum to go shortly unless Miranda keeps that on herself.  Still a member on the Tez forum as it was the first music forum I joined so although it is a bit quiet I stick around for nostalgia I suppose.

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14 hours ago, MacabreEternal said:

There’s been problems for a good year or so with production and distribution of the mag.  I am expecting the Tez forum to go shortly unless Miranda keeps that on herself.  Still a member on the Tez forum as it was the first music forum I joined so although it is a bit quiet I stick around for nostalgia I suppose.

Ah I see, I used to have a subscription for a couple of years. After that I used to get it from Smiths but have seen it less and less there. Wondered why.

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16 hours ago, MacabreEternal said:

There’s been problems for a good year or so with production and distribution of the mag.  I am expecting the Tez forum to go shortly unless Miranda keeps that on herself.  Still a member on the Tez forum as it was the first music forum I joined so although it is a bit quiet I stick around for nostalgia I suppose.

The rot started a lot longer than a year ago. Here's my story: 

I started buying Terrorizer in 1997, and I still have at least two copies from that year. Coincidentally, I just sent @True Belief a picture of one of them a couple of days ago (the Mayhem cover). For a kid in Australia in the 90s, it was easily the best way to get news and information about quality metal bands, and the journalism was comparatively fantastic when compared with the competition. I still sometimes flick through these old editions for the historical value. 

I was a regular purchaser from newsagents for several years, even getting the newsagent to hold me a copy, until I finally took out a subscription in about 2001 I think. I was a subscriber from then through to about 2011 or 2012, I can't recall for certain, but I kept every copy and I have a garden shed full of literally hundreds of copies in cardboard boxes, smelling of lawn mower fuel now I've discovered. I once had a letter published in the letters section and my first album was reviewed when I was living in England. From memory they gave it 6/10. I had a track on one of their Fear Candy c.ds too later on. 

So anyway I was a huge supporter, until....

Back around 2012 or thereabouts - I really can't remember specifically- there were huge problems with distribution all of a sudden. Without notification the magazine stopped arriving in my mailbox and this happened to many other people as well. Month after month went by with nothing, despite having paid in full. Emails and facebook messages to the publisher went ignored, and it was quite a scandal at the time. 

I felt really let down. I had literally purchased every copy from about 1997 through to 2012 which amounted to a huge investment, and then I was literally ripped off. It wasn't just me though, it was obviously many, many people. After about six months my subscription elapsed and that was it - no renewal letter, no email. So I just let it go. All this time, however, they were updating the website and advertising on facebook, and issues were appearing in the newsagents. It was crazy. People were losing their shit over it and there was venom and vitriol on their social media platforms. 

I could be wrong about the 2012 date, but that seems to be when my collection ends so it seems about right. I had noticed that the standard of journalism had been slipping for a couple of years before that too. A quick comparison between the late 90s and early 2000s issues and the 2010s issues reveals much shorter album reviews and artist features in the later editions. As in 50% shorter. The articles about bands became more like blurbs than full stories and I never really understood why. I'm sort of amazed when I flick through the 2010-2012 issues even now at how everything became truncated and simplified.  I haven't read an issue since my subscription disappeared into the aether. 

So screw you Terrorizer. You owe me about 50 bucks for the remainder of my subscription many years ago! What bothered me much more than that, however, was the fact that you couldn't even be bothered to send me a quick note to explain what was going on. Just bizarre. And probably a "thanks" for about 15 years as a regular customer. I want it in writing and signed in blood. 

 

 

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What a shame! Even though I never subscribed to any English written metal magazines then I used to buy them from time to time when ever I came by the international news agent at Copenhagen central train station. Magazines such Metal Hammer, Kerrang, and Terrorizer were well written and gave the reader a good update on the metal scene in general. 

But alas every thing comes to an end sooner or later. When considering that bands today can make their own updates online together with easy accessble online nterviews...of might I add unfortunately often poor quality...then  time might be up for music magazines in general

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23 minutes ago, Tortuga said:

What a shame! Even though I never subscribed to any English written metal magazines then I used to buy them from time to time when ever I came by the international news agent at Copenhagen central train station. Magazines such Metal Hammer, Kerrang, and Terrorizer were well written and gave the reader a good update on the metal scene in general. 

But alas every thing comes to an end sooner or later. When considering that bands today can make their own updates online together with easy accessble online nterviews...of might I add unfortunately often poor quality...then  time might be up for music magazines in general

It's certainly a different world now, and I feel for any company trying to keep hardcopy publishing going on. Except Terrorizer...

It's a far cry from the 80s when Kerrang used to fly journalists out to festivals around the world, put them up in great hotels and pay all expenses, just to get a special feature! 

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8 hours ago, Requiem said:

The rot started a lot longer than a year ago. Here's my story: 

I started buying Terrorizer in 1997, and I still have at least two copies from that year. Coincidentally, I just sent @True Belief a picture of one of them a couple of days ago (the Mayhem cover). For a kid in Australia in the 90s, it was easily the best way to get news and information about quality metal bands, and the journalism was comparatively fantastic when compared with the competition. I still sometimes flick through these old editions for the historical value. 

I was a regular purchaser from newsagents for several years, even getting the newsagent to hold me a copy, until I finally took out a subscription in about 2001 I think. I was a subscriber from then through to about 2011 or 2012, I can't recall for certain, but I kept every copy and I have a garden shed full of literally hundreds of copies in cardboard boxes, smelling of lawn mower fuel now I've discovered. I once had a letter published in the letters section and my first album was reviewed when I was living in England. From memory they gave it 6/10. I had a track on one of their Fear Candy c.ds too later on. 

So anyway I was a huge supporter, until....

Back around 2012 or thereabouts - I really can't remember specifically- there were huge problems with distribution all of a sudden. Without notification the magazine stopped arriving in my mailbox and this happened to many other people as well. Month after month went by with nothing, despite having paid in full. Emails and facebook messages to the publisher went ignored, and it was quite a scandal at the time. 

I felt really let down. I had literally purchased every copy from about 1997 through to 2012 which amounted to a huge investment, and then I was literally ripped off. It wasn't just me though, it was obviously many, many people. After about six months my subscription elapsed and that was it - no renewal letter, no email. So I just let it go. All this time, however, they were updating the website and advertising on facebook, and issues were appearing in the newsagents. It was crazy. People were losing their shit over it and there was venom and vitriol on their social media platforms. 

I could be wrong about the 2012 date, but that seems to be when my collection ends so it seems about right. I had noticed that the standard of journalism had been slipping for a couple of years before that too. A quick comparison between the late 90s and early 2000s issues and the 2010s issues reveals much shorter album reviews and artist features in the later editions. As in 50% shorter. The articles about bands became more like blurbs than full stories and I never really understood why. I'm sort of amazed when I flick through the 2010-2012 issues even now at how everything became truncated and simplified.  I haven't read an issue since my subscription disappeared into the aether. 

So screw you Terrorizer. You owe me about 50 bucks for the remainder of my subscription many years ago! What bothered me much more than that, however, was the fact that you couldn't even be bothered to send me a quick note to explain what was going on. Just bizarre. And probably a "thanks" for about 15 years as a regular customer. I want it in writing and signed in blood. 

 

 

Sadly, you are not the only one with this experience.  The “Mag” section of the forum was regularly populated with such tales of poor customer experience.  The owners never put out any responses,apologies or updates (in fact they never even posted on the forum).  

I am a Zero Tolerance subscriber still, I have little interest in Kerrang or Metal Hammer (the latter went through a difficult patch also in recent years) as they don’t cover the extreme side of metal too well.  Glad they still have some relevance though.

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1 hour ago, MacabreEternal said:

Sadly, you are not the only one with this experience.  The “Mag” section of the forum was regularly populated with such tales of poor customer experience.  The owners never put out any responses,apologies or updates (in fact they never even posted on the forum).  

I am a Zero Tolerance subscriber still, I have little interest in Kerrang or Metal Hammer (the latter went through a difficult patch also in recent years) as they don’t cover the extreme side of metal too well.  Glad they still have some relevance though.

Funny you should say that, because I actually took out a subscription with Zero Tolerance right after the Terrorizer blimp went down. The customer service was a thousand times better. I let that subscription lapse because I wasn't finding enough bands that I was personally interested in reading about. Also, the small format of the magazine I found to be a little hard to deal with - the font was bloody tiny. Why do they publish it in A5(?) size? It's like the magazine shrank in the wash...

Haven't read a Kerrang or Metal Hammer since high school in the 90s, and even then I knew there was something not quite right with them. Having said that, I've since bought an 80s copy of Kerrang on ebay for the nostalgia/history. In fact, I foolishly bought two of the same issue about six months apart if you can believe that. What a knucklehead I am. Good times. 

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  • 10 months later...
  • 6 months later...
On 2/8/2019 at 5:07 PM, Requiem said:

The rot started a lot longer than a year ago. Here's my story: 

I started buying Terrorizer in 1997, and I still have at least two copies from that year. Coincidentally, I just sent @True Belief a picture of one of them a couple of days ago (the Mayhem cover). For a kid in Australia in the 90s, it was easily the best way to get news and information about quality metal bands, and the journalism was comparatively fantastic when compared with the competition. I still sometimes flick through these old editions for the historical value. 

I was a regular purchaser from newsagents for several years, even getting the newsagent to hold me a copy, until I finally took out a subscription in about 2001 I think. I was a subscriber from then through to about 2011 or 2012, I can't recall for certain, but I kept every copy and I have a garden shed full of literally hundreds of copies in cardboard boxes, smelling of lawn mower fuel now I've discovered. I once had a letter published in the letters section and my first album was reviewed when I was living in England. From memory they gave it 6/10. I had a track on one of their Fear Candy c.ds too later on. 

So anyway I was a huge supporter, until....

Back around 2012 or thereabouts - I really can't remember specifically- there were huge problems with distribution all of a sudden. Without notification the magazine stopped arriving in my mailbox and this happened to many other people as well. Month after month went by with nothing, despite having paid in full. Emails and facebook messages to the publisher went ignored, and it was quite a scandal at the time. 

I felt really let down. I had literally purchased every copy from about 1997 through to 2012 which amounted to a huge investment, and then I was literally ripped off. It wasn't just me though, it was obviously many, many people. After about six months my subscription elapsed and that was it - no renewal letter, no email. So I just let it go. All this time, however, they were updating the website and advertising on facebook, and issues were appearing in the newsagents. It was crazy. People were losing their shit over it and there was venom and vitriol on their social media platforms. 

I could be wrong about the 2012 date, but that seems to be when my collection ends so it seems about right. I had noticed that the standard of journalism had been slipping for a couple of years before that too. A quick comparison between the late 90s and early 2000s issues and the 2010s issues reveals much shorter album reviews and artist features in the later editions. As in 50% shorter. The articles about bands became more like blurbs than full stories and I never really understood why. I'm sort of amazed when I flick through the 2010-2012 issues even now at how everything became truncated and simplified.  I haven't read an issue since my subscription disappeared into the aether. 

So screw you Terrorizer. You owe me about 50 bucks for the remainder of my subscription many years ago! What bothered me much more than that, however, was the fact that you couldn't even be bothered to send me a quick note to explain what was going on. Just bizarre. And probably a "thanks" for about 15 years as a regular customer. I want it in writing and signed in blood. 

 

 

It sounds like you could have paid a visit to Terrorizer headquarters and unloaded a few magazines of your own, terrorizing the lot of them. Payback in full metal jacket.

 

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On 7/27/2020 at 4:12 PM, Vampyrique said:

It sounds like you could have paid a visit to Terrorizer headquarters and unloaded a few magazines of your own, terrorizing the lot of them. Payback in full metal jacket.

There's a plethora of publication puns if ever I paused to perceive some. 

Sometimes betrayal is more of a sadness than a point of angry ignition. You can beat me, you can break up with me, you can fire me from my job. But don't end my metal magazine subscription without a clear explanation and refund! It broke me. Deep inside. 

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4 hours ago, Requiem said:

There's a plethora of publication puns if ever I paused to perceive some. 

Sometimes betrayal is more of a sadness than a point of angry ignition. You can beat me, you can break up with me, you can fire me from my job. But don't end my metal magazine subscription without a clear explanation and refund! It broke me. Deep inside. 

I know. Maybe we should have that conversation about pun control before someone gets hurt. But not you because you're already hurt. 

You said circa 2012, maybe they thought the world was going to end beginning with Australia.

 

 

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